1. Field of the Invention
The embodiments of the invention generally relate to improving satisfaction at service centers, contact centers, or call centers, through conveying waiting time or delay information to customers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Contact centers, or call centers, have become an increasingly important part of running many businesses. Contact centers have been primarily used for technical support and for billing questions. They are also often used for sales and marketing purposes, as well as resolving problems with products and services and billing issues. When calls are routed to contact centers for technical or billing problems, the contact center employees may perform up-sell and cross-sell functions to make sales and gain additional revenue from a captive consumer. Service centers are a general term for facilities where customers wait to be served, and can include service or call centers as well as facilities such as banks, restaurants, etc. We shall use the term service centers henceforth to include all such facilities mentioned herein.
As such, increasing efficiency of service centers has become a source of intense work. Efficiency may be increased by performing optimal call routing and addressing staffing issues in the service centers. In addition, staffing is often modifiable only over a longer time frame, e.g., several months, due to the time intensive nature of training new or redeployed personnel.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,522,743, herein incorporated by reference, discloses a call routing system and method. U.S. Pat. No. 7,043,004, herein incorporated by reference discloses a call processing system to handle and route calls made to a call center. U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,731, herein incorporated by reference, discloses a method for improving retention of call center customers.